Saving Grace
by R.C. Monkeytree
Summary: Post Grave, Spike returns home.
1. 8700 Miles

Title: 8,700 Miles.  
Author: R.C. Monkeytree  
Disclaimer: Oh, come on.  
Rating: Let's say PG-13, for one naughty word.  
Spoilers: Grave.  
Summary: Yay for yet another "Soul-y Spike Returns Home" stories!  
  
Like always, she felt him before she saw him. She told herself that it was because that he was a vampire, and she was a slayer. She told herself that it had nothing to do with who he was. She told herself that this- whatever it is they had- was nothing like what she had with her last undead lover.  
  
"Hello, Spike," she said quietly.  
  
He usually gave himself up right away, but this time, there was nothing. It was just silence. For a brief moment, Buffy wondered if her Spike Senses were off-kilter today.  
  
"Hello, Buffy." His soft voice dismissed her thoughts. Still, she couldn't see him. She turned and faced the direction of his voice and saw nothing but the dark Sunnydale woods.  
  
"You're back." A statement, not a question.  
  
"It would appear so, luv." Still no sight of him. It unnerved her.  
  
"Do you want to come out where I can see you or are you going to play the Stalker Boy game for a little while longer?"  
  
She could sense his hesitation. After a couple of eternally long seconds, he emerged from the dark shadows where he usually dwelled.  
  
It had been over three months since she'd last saw her former lover. Much to her chagrin, he looked just as handsome as she'd remembered him in her dreams. Still, something was off. Something was… different. He had retained the shock of platinum atop his head. His wardrobe was still depressingly monochromatic. His duster was missing, but that was expected, since it was safely tucked away in a cardboard box at the bottom of Buffy's closet, where she never dared to venture a peek ever since she'd shut it away.  
  
He avoided her gaze and uneasily shuffled his weight from one foot to another. He looked… nervous. An adjective Buffy rarely associated with Spike.  
  
"Where've you been?" She tried to be casual about it. She had promised herself that she wasn't going to care. Not about a monster who'd tried to… do what he did.  
  
He didn't answer right away.  
  
"I won't lie to you, Buffy," he said earnestly- another thing Buffy never associated with him. "I was… in Africa. A cave. Visitin' a demon to see about something I'd wanted."  
  
Her mind fled to the worst possible scenario. She stared at his head, as if a penetrating stare would reveal to her the truth about the leash that was supposed to be there. His attempted violation of her had felt horrible. This was worse. The sense of betrayal stabbed at her, along with panic and fear.  
  
"And did you? Get what you wanted?" she asked coldly. He finally met her eyes.  
  
"Yes," he admitted. "But now I'm not so sure."  
  
He looked at her, more radiant than he'd ever seen her, and all he wanted to do was tell her the truth. The suspicion and hurt in her eyes were more than he could bare. But he couldn't. He couldn't bring the word to his lips.  
  
"Congratulations," she managed harshly.  
  
He knew what she thought she knew. All it took was a simple explanation, and she'd stop looking at him like that. Like they were mortal enemies again. Like the last two years had never happened. But instead, he said:  
  
"This changes nothin', pet."  
  
"I think it does." Buffy withdrew a stake from her jacket.  
  
-He had spent five nights and eleven hours looking for the cave.-  
  
"Don't." Spike doesn't beg. Not then, and not now.  
  
"What did you *think* I was going to do?" She tightened her grip on the weapon for moral support. " 'Gee- you're chipless again. Let's fuck.' "  
  
"It's not like that," he explains weakly. "I wasn't…"  
  
-For five days, he hid beneath disfigured cliffs, living off nothing.-  
  
"I should have done this a long time ago."  
  
"I've changed, Buffy. I'm different now. I'm not like I was."  
  
"I've heard that one before." She took a step closer, her sense of duty mounting. "You're a liar and a murderer."  
  
-He'd suffered through the three trials.-  
  
"Not anymore," he said defiantly. The dark look in her eyes told him that she didn't believe him.  
  
-He'd endured the most excruciating physical pain he'd ever felt for seventy-two hours.-  
  
She flung herself at him, the stake pointing at where it'd hurt the most. It missed only in the literal sense. Her attack sent him rolling over a gravestone, taking her with him.  
  
-When it was over, there were more than twenty-one cuts on his body.-  
  
She violently untangled herself from him and sprung to her feet. He weakly rose to his knees, the wood protruding from his shoulder. She produced another stake, and attacked again. He didn't fight back. He didn't even try. She knocked him over easily and she beat him.  
  
Over and over. Smashing in the face she thought to be so handsome. It was so reminiscent of the last time, the time behind the police station.  
  
-He didn't even include the three broken bones he had.-  
  
She straddled him, like she had so many times before, but everything is different this time. The second stake was pointed directly at his heart. And she froze there. She looked in his eyes and saw something she couldn't recognize.  
  
-After everything, he spent one week on his back. Just healing.-  
  
Slowly, she released him. She climbed off him and backed away.  
  
"Leave," she said firmly. "Get out of here. I don't *ever* want to see you again. I see your face around this town again and I will kill you. No threats this time. That's a promise. One that I intend to keep."  
  
-He traveled North, and spent one month in the complete silence and solitude of the cold. He lived off dead animals like a scavenger.-  
  
She turned around and walked away, her head held high. After all, she had done the right thing. Reclaimed her moral dignity. And left a broken man in the dirt where she thought he belonged.  
  
-He'd spent two months, repenting and brooding, just like another vampire had.-  
  
He watched her leave through swollen eyelids. He said nothing. He just counted.  
  
5 nights, 11 hours of searching.  
  
5 days as a refugee from the sun.  
  
3 difficult trials.  
  
72 hours of indescribable pain.  
  
21 cuts, gashes and wounds .  
  
1 week of healing.  
  
1 month of solitude.  
  
2 months of nothingness.  
  
8,700 miles. The return trip home to his love just so he can reclaim his broken heart.  
  
The word "soul" never left his lips.  
  
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  
  
All right, don't make me beg here.  
  
Okay, fine- please leave me some feedback? Negative, positive- just let me know where to go from here.  
  
This is intended to be the first chapter of a larger series. 


	2. Soul

Title: Soul  
Author: R.C. Monkeytree  
Disclaimer: Oh, come on.  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: Grave.  
Summary: Following "8,700 Miles", Spike is left beaten in a cemetary- guess who finds him?  
  
  
It could have been anybody. From his human-hunting days, he knew from personal experience that there was no shortage of people in Sunnydale. Anybody could've found him.  
  
It had to be the last person in the world he'd want to see him like this.   
  
He smelled her. He felt her kneel beside him. Her small hand on top of his unmoving chest.  
  
"Spike," she murmured.  
  
"Hey, bit," he managed to crack a smile. It was a mistake, and his cheek muscles paid for it dearly.  
  
"You're…" She was searching for the proper word, but was coming up short.  
  
"Thrashed? Beaten? Bruised? Got the shit kicked out of me?" he nods. "All of the above, I'd wager."  
  
"When did you get home?"  
  
"While ago."  
  
"Can you move?"  
  
Her concern touched him. And disgusted him. He didn't deserve any of it.  
  
" 'Course I can move," he said indignantly. "Now, get on home to big sis, will ya? You're blocking my moonlight."  
  
"But you're hurt."  
  
"Am not. Takes more than a couple scraps to hurt a Big Bad like me." Big Bad. Ha.  
  
"We should get you out of here."  
  
"Nonsense. I feel fine."  
  
"Then what are you doing lying in the middle of the cemetery?"  
  
"Moon bathing. Does wonders for the skin, y'know."  
  
She studied him intensely for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. At last, she plopped down next to him.  
  
"In that case, you won't mind if I join you."  
  
"No, no, no- there are big, evil nasties roaming 'bout tonight. It's not safe out here," he said quickly.  
  
"You'll protect me, won't you, Spike?" Dawn said sweetly.  
  
"Like hell I- wait a minute," a thought occurred to him. "What the bloody hell are *you* doing here? Does Buffy know where you are?"  
  
"Yeah, right," Dawn scoffed. "Can you imagine? She'd totally wig."  
  
"Dawn…" He knew that his tone carried a paternal annoyance, and what was left of his demon scoffed inwardly.  
  
"Look, it's no big, all right?"  
  
"Bollocks. I'd bet Buffy's going crazy lookin' for you," he paused. "Hey… the Scoobes aren't shuttin' you out again, are they? 'Cause if they are, soon as I get up, I'll give 'em a stern talking-to…"  
  
"No, it's not that." She fell silent.  
  
"Nibblet?" he prodded.  
  
"It's just that… things have been weird lately. Like, really weird. A lot's happened since you were gone. Bad things," she paused, her mind recounting the events that had occurred shortly after Spike's departure. "Buffy's cutting me a little more slack these days. She doesn't expect me to hang out around the house much, not with Willow there and everything. She says it's because Willow needs some time, but I don't know- I just think that maybe she's still scared. Like maybe Willow's going to snap again."  
  
"What's happened to Red?"  
  
"What hasn't happened?" Dawn replied sadly.  
  
"Gimme the short version."  
  
"Um, okay. Buffy was shot. Tara was killed. Willow killed Warren. She tried to go after Jonathan and what's-his-face but then she just decided to end the world. She almost killed Giles and Xander and Anya and Buffy. How's that for the short version?" Dawn said, not without some bitterness.  
  
For the longest time, Spike couldn't say anything. Strange sensations washed over him like he'd never felt before. For some reason, he was reminded of the time when he was sitting in a demon bar, intending to get very smashed when he overheard a Fyergal demon next to him telling another vampire how the Slayer's mum had passed away and how there'd be no time like the present to attack. Spike had twisted the head off the Fyergal and dusted the vampire in two swift strokes.  
  
Finally, he spoke again.  
  
"I'm…" 'Sorry' didn't seem to cut it.  
  
"It's okay. Nobody else knows what to say either. It's been silent." She didn't say anything for a while, then she asked what she'd wanted to ask all along. "Did you do it?"  
  
"Pet?" Spike asked with confusion.  
  
"Xander told me… about what you tried to do to Buffy right before you left," Dawn stared at the vampire before her. He never realized just how much she looked liked her sister when she's angry. "Is it true?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Silence again.  
  
"Do you hate me?" Spike asked.  
  
"A little," Dawn admitted. "You hurt Buffy."  
  
"I didn't mean-" Spike sighed. "It's complicated."  
  
"Then you left. And you weren't here when… everything happened."  
  
He felt the old guilt creeping up again. He'd abandoned them, just like the others had.  
  
"Does Buffy know you're back in town?" Dawn asked  
  
Spike thought about the look of hatred on Buffy's face, then forcibly pushed it out of his mind. He didn't answer her.  
  
"She did this to you," she guessed correctly.  
  
"No, luv- no," Spike hesitated. "Well, yes. But I had it comin'."  
  
Dawn eyed him suspiciously. She knew. Something was off about him.  
  
"It's getting late," she finally said. "Maybe I should leave you here till the sun comes up."  
  
He said nothing. So she got up, dusted herself off and left him there.  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
She waited until an hour before sunrise to let anybody know where he was.  
  
Clem managed to get Spike safely back to his crypt just as the first light of the sun began to peer over the horizon. Spike had healed considerably by then, but still needed his friend's help onto the sarcophagus-turned-bed. His head buzzed with indistinct noises. Everything was far away, and all he could hear was the sound of his own blood rushing to his head.  
  
"Gosh, man, you look terrible," Clem remarked.  
  
Spike stared at Clem's unassuming brown jacket, stained with his dry blood. He thought of New Orleans, 1961. He had killed a man who had been wearing a jacket of the same color. He had patiently listened to the man's story of his sick wife and four kids before snapping his neck. Then he peeled the jacket off the dead body and sold it for a dollar.  
  
"Do you want some blood?"  
  
He and Dru once ate a family of a man, a woman and their new-born baby girl. The mother had held on to his leg, crying and pleading for him to spare the life of her child. He had agreed. Then handed the baby over for Drusilla to eat.  
  
"Chicken wings? Cigarette? Um… maybe some gauze?"  
  
Spike rejected Clem's offerings with silence. He looked around his dark, dank tomb and thought of his first night in a place like this. Darla, Angelus, Drusilla and him, hiding from a mob of angry villagers after he had impulsively ate a pretty virgin right in the middle of town square.  
  
Clem dragged the old dusty arm chair over to Spike's stone bedside and sat down.  
  
When he was a young boy, his mother used to sit up with him like this when he was sick. Spike didn't kill her. Just all her high society friends whom William had despised. When he returned home ten years later, he heard that his mother had hung herself after being driven mad with the belief that her son had been possessed by the devil.  
  
He felt a rush of sickness coming up from the pit of his stomach. He turned over and coughed up what little was left in his stomach. Clem sat forward with concern, like a good friend. It made him felt worse.  
  
He eyed Clem with disgust and rage. It was a demon. A filthy, inhuman, soulless demon, incapable of love and caring. It was a thing. Just like he himself used to be.  
  
"Get out," Spike choked out harshly.  
  
"Spike, you're in no shape to-"  
  
"GET OUT!" Spike howled, lashing out at his only friend. His fist struck the side of Clem's flabby face. Though considerably weakened, he was still strong enough to send Clem staggering backwards.  
  
"Spike…"  
  
"Before I kill you," Spike growled angrily. Clem backed away in fear, and when he reached the door, turned around and fled into the night.  
  
Exhausted, Spike collapsed on his bed and squeezed his eyes shut, letting the tears fall onto the soft fabric. He could feel the monster raging inside. William would never have threatened the life or a man- or a demon. It was Spike. It was Spike inside, screaming and howling to be let out.  
  
I'll beat you yet, he vowed.  
  
That night, he made a promise to extinguish Spike- for good. 


	3. Unwelcome Changes

Title: Unwelcome Changes  
Author: R.C. Monkeytree  
Rating: R  
Summary: Spike, as an upstanding citizen? Yeah.  
  
  
  
He thought that his cheekbones might crack and split his skin open if he'd smiled any wider. He clenched his jaw together and tried to focus on the multicolored, paisley curtains that hung behind the tiny, mousy man with a budding horseshoe bald spot. The man peered over his horned-rim glasses with dark, beady eyes. He cleared his throat and sat up straight, in a futile attempt to make himself look bigger and thus more important than he- an assistant manager for a rent-a-cop service - really is.  
  
"William…" he stole a quick glance to the manila folder on his desk. "Byron, is it?"  
  
"Aye, sir," Spike answered in a disgustingly cheerful tone.  
  
The manager shuffled a few pieces of paper of little importance around on his grand mahogany desk. Spike hated guys like him. Slight, trivial little men who walked around with their noses up the elite's asses and the poor beneath their shoes. He would never even drink from a man like him- he'd just snap his neck and do the world a favor.  
  
But of course, he wasn't Spike anymore. William the Bloody, the killer of two slayers and master wielder of railroad spikes existed no more. There was only William Byron, the well-mannered, upstanding citizen of the kingdom of Great Britain; who, by some puzzling blunder of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Services, had lost his rightful papers to remain in the country and was now an unfortunate, persecuted victim of D.C. political red tape. Translation: yet another illegal immigrant working below the minimum wage for the Stockford & Sons Security Systems.  
  
"Very well," the man sighed thickly through his wheezing lungs and stamped Spike's personnel folder. "You wanted night shifts?"  
  
"Yes, sir," he took great care to speak with correct upper-class London accent. "You see, I've got this condition-"  
  
"Yeah, who gives a fuck?" The man dismissed him with a wave of his pudgy fingers. Spike forced down the urge to lunge across the table and grip him by the neck and shake him senseless.  
  
"Report to the Southern Warehouse District tomorrow night at 8," the manager carelessly tossed Spike's files back at him. "Don't be late."  
  
Spike wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around the manager's flabby neck and choke the life out of him.  
  
Instead, he flashed him a prize-winning grin, thanked him for his time and said goodbye.  
  
=======================================================================================  
  
Vampires, being a member of the living dead, could naturally do without some functionalities required of living beings- say, breathing. But at that moment, Spike could swear that the heavy cloud that wafted through the dimly lit hallway was toxic and damaging to even his dead lungs.   
  
The low, yellow glow of swaying light bulbs only aided the smoke in creating a curtain of dense fog you could only imagine existed in stories about Jack the Ripper lurking about in 19th century London.  
  
This was where he called home, along with twenty-two other citizens who dwelled within the hole its proprietors dared to call an apartment building. The hallways were perpetually enveloped in a sea of gray haze, accompanied by some various interesting scents- from run of the mill cigarettes smoke to the more peculiar smell of burning flesh. It was also not unusual to spot a fresh, red, wet liquid stain splattered across the crumbling plaster walls.  
  
Spike ambled down the hallway, his black boots clunking thickly against the floorboards, towards the literally rat-infested home he paid seventy dollars a week for. The crypt was a much better home. But of course, William Byron would never be a squatter in a crypt.  
  
A door to his right jerked open, and a slender man with cloudy eyes and jittery hands popped his head out.  
  
"Oh- hey, Will." The man grinned boyishly as he glanced nervously up and down the hallway.  
  
"Matthew." Spike slapped his hand against Matthew's. Exchanging pleasantries with humans- Spike wondered what Drusilla would say if she saw him now.  
  
"Had a killer party last night," Matthew sniffed and thumbed his nose habitually. "Missed ya there."  
  
"Next time, mate."  
  
"Gonna hold you to that." Much to Spike's dismay, Matthew stepped out into the hallway. He was tired, and he wanted to go home. "Wanna hit the clubs later?"  
  
"No, I'm beat."  
  
"You're not going to just sit there and think about what's-her-name, are you?"  
  
"Scout's honor," Spike raised his hand.  
  
"Good," Matthew nodded. "Well- I gotta get back." Matthew disappeared into the darkness and the door shut with a quiet click.  
  
Spike continued on his way and reached the narrow door with peeling black paint at the end of the hallway. He turned the knob and pushed the door open- nobody in the building locked their doors. It had nothing to do with neighborly trust, it's just that- what was the point of locking your door when you knew your neighbor's five year old son could pick it open with a paper clip, blindfolded?  
  
The apartment was cramped, even though it had little in possession. It had a rickety spring bed, a night table beside it and a wobbly table at the center of the room accompanied by two shaky chairs marred with scars and dents. a small fridge that hummed loudly in the corner next to the kitchenette and a door beside it led to a small room that was supposed to be a bathroom. Two rats were munching away on a moldy green cheese on the fridge, they paused to look at Spike when he came in, then went back to their meal.  
  
Spike toed off his shoes and crashed down onto the small bed. He curled up and stared out into the quiet night through the scratched-up windows. It looked peaceful enough. But Spike knew that in this part of Sunnydale, there were monsters lurking about in the dark looking for their prey- and not all of them were demons.  
  
He felt the urge to break loose of this claustrophobic hole and head down towards the Bronze and swipe a drink when the owner wasn't looking or the demon bars for a game of kitten-poker. As quickly as the thoughts entered his head, he pushed them out. You're not Spike, he reminded himself. William.  
  
He sighed and rolled onto his back. He wondered what it is he did to pass the time on nights like these.  
  
=======================================================================================  
  
He was watching her.  
  
So she stepped to the window and pushed aside the half-closed curtains in silent invitation.  
  
He had her in his arms in an instant, kissing her furiously with want and need.  
  
When she remembered her senses, she pushed him back and crossed her arms like a petulant child.  
  
"I thought I told you to leave town," Buffy said icily.   
  
"Well, never was very good at following orders."  
  
"Get out."  
  
"Now, now, luv." He began tugging at his t-shirt. "I've got better ideas."  
  
"W- what are you doing?!" She did her best impression of a shocked, proper lady. He knew better, and chuckled lowly.  
  
"What's it look like?" He carelessly tossed his black shirt into the corner, coincidentally- she supposed- over Mr. Gordo's innocent eyes.  
  
"If you think for a moment that I'm going to do *that* with you again, you are seriously-"  
  
"Take off your shirt," he interrupted as he started work on his jeans.  
  
She meant to push him out the window, but instead found her hands unbuttoning her shirt.  
  
"Those too," he nodded towards her pajama pants.  
  
She obediently kicked off her pajama pants and underwear, and stood before him, waiting. He took a deliberate pause in admiring her before roughly shoving her onto her bed. It was wrong. She had to stop him. But it's been so long since they'd last-   
  
He traveled south, and she lost all thoughts.  
  
"Spike," she moaned. "Please-"  
  
"Tell me," he murmured.  
  
"Huh?"   
  
"TELL me," he said forcefully, gripping her hips hard, sending a wave of pain/pleasure through her.  
  
"Tell you-"  
  
"I've got to hear it." There was warning in his voice, and he lifted himself up to her level, staring at her coldly with the promise of desertion.  
  
"I… I love you."  
  
"That's what I thought." He kissed her, deeply. When he pulled back, she found herself staring into an inhuman face. Before she could scream, he sunk his teeth into her.  
  
Buffy awoke with a startled scream. She was fully dressed, alone, and damp between the legs. A dream. Just a dream. She shook her head vigorously in a futile attempt to shake the memories away.   
  
It took her a few seconds to realize that she wasn't in her room. No. Mom's room, she remembered. She had given her room to Willow because, well…  
  
She shook her head again. She didn't want to be thinking about Tara, or Willow and certainly not Spike. She kicked off the covers and went down to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of milk while she rummaged through the fridge for Dawn's breakfast. The refrigerator was sparsely populated with condiments, opened jars of perishables and chocolates and junk food. Nothing remotely nutritional in sight, as it always was in the Summers home ever since Joyce's passing.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
There was Dawn in the doorway, hair mussed and sleepy-eyed.  
  
"Dawn. What are you doing up?"  
  
"I heard you scream," Dawn wearily walked into the kitchen, as if she expected a grotesque monster to leap out of any dark corner.  
  
"Oh. That- I just had a dream. Everything's okay."  
  
"Well, what was it?" Dawn slid into one of the stools situated next to the kitchen island.  
  
"It was…" so not going to go there. "It was just a dream. It doesn't matter." Buffy was dying for a subject change. "So- we're severely lacking in breakfast foods. Well, really, all kinds of food in general. I'm going to make a quick run to the grocery later, what do you want for breakfast?"  
  
"I don't want anything."  
  
"Dawn, you can't go without-"  
  
"Would you hold the sermon?" Dawn rolled her eyes in her teenage ways. "I'm just going to snag a pop-tart from Janice in homeroom."  
  
"Oh. Well, I guess that's okay. I mean, as long as Janice doesn't mind."  
  
"Oh, no," the younger Summers said dismissively with a roll of her head. "Janice is like, totally going through this anorexic/bulimic phase. She won't eat anything one day and throw everything up the next." Catching her sister's look, she quickly added, "not like I'm like that. At all. I'm fine. No disgusting eating disorders here."  
  
"Good. Stay that way."  
  
She expected her to go back upstairs, but instead Dawn shuffled and folded her hands- stalling, waiting on the right moment to breech a sensitive subject.  
  
"I saw Spike," she finally said.  
  
"Oh." A hundred different emotions lurked beneath her stoic voice.  
  
"I saw what you did to him."  
  
Buffy didn't look at her sister.  
  
"Did he tell you that?"  
  
"No- he didn't have to," Dawn shrugged. "It's not like he'd ever let anyone else do that to him."  
  
The truth of her words stung, and Buffy scrambled for recovery.  
  
"Yeah, especially with that chip out of his head."  
  
Dawn narrowed her eyes in quizzical wonder, trying to discern whether the announcement was true or not.  
  
"I don't believe you," she declared.  
  
"You don't have to believe me, but it's still true."  
  
"Well, I want him to tell me himself."  
  
"Dawn, listen to me." Buffy leaned forward across the counter. "You need to stay away from him."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why? Hello, evil, soulless vampire!"  
  
"He'd never hurt me."  
  
"You don't know that."  
  
"Yes, I do."  
  
"Dawn, he hurt me- he could hurt you too."  
  
"No, he wouldn't." Strong. Firm. Dawn's eyes were as cold as steel and her voice carried the conviction her sister lacked.  
  
"You are not to go near him, you understand?"  
  
The younger Summers's temper flared at the order. She trained her eyes on Buffy.  
  
"Try and stop me."  
  
Buffy found herself staring into a pair of hazel eyes, inflamed with life and defiance. It was a look she'd been long accustomed to. How many times, after a screaming match, thundering steps and a slammed door, had she looked into the mirror and found those same eyes, staring back with hot fury.  
  
=======================================================================================  
  
"Southern gate?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"North gate?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"East gate?"  
  
"Check."  
  
"West gate?"  
  
"Check."  
  
The plump night officer scrutinized the new kid with a wary eye. He tugged at his slipping belt around his hefty midsection and rubbed his sweaty palms together. He wiped one wet hand along his small, midnight-blue uniform which bulged and tightened in all the wrong places. He resembled something like an overripe blueberry.  
  
"Are you sure you locked the North gate?"   
  
"Yes, sir." He'd taken care to lock the gates, just like he had every night since he'd started the job two weeks ago.  
  
"You turned the key?"  
  
"Yeah." William does not get mad at trivialities.  
  
"You heard it click?"  
  
"…Yeah." Williams does not get mad at repetition.  
  
"Tugged the padlock?"  
  
"It's locked." William does not get mad at inane questioning.   
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
William does not get mad at stupid, simpering human IDIOTS who deserved to be dinner for a gang of blood thirsty vampires.  
  
"Okay, then," Sergeant Blueberry said approvingly before Spike could really let it rip. "You can go."  
  
"Thank you… SIR."  
  
"William?"  
  
Spike froze in his steps, but didn't turn around. He was afraid of what bodily harm he might cause the fine Blueberry if he did.  
  
"You've done a fine job here tonight," Blueberry said approvingly. "But do something that goddamn hair, will ya? You look like a damn faggot."  
  
Spike half-turned, gave a half-hearted smile and bowed out. All the while cursing inwardly with all the filth he could think of.  
  
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Buffy Summers had stared down demons, prevented countless apocalypses, and survived two- nearly three- deaths. She even defeated a Hell God. But finally, the time has come when she had to admit defeat. She had lost. She took a deep breath, collected herself and prepared herself for the worst.  
  
"Do you want Rice Krispies or Count Chocula?" she asked her sister.  
  
And with that, she had lost the Silent Treatment War that had been raging on in the Summers home.  
  
"Whatever," Dawn gave a small shrug.  
  
"Rice Krispies it is," Buffy said cheerfully. They gravely continued down the cereal aisle in silence. "Dawn," Buffy started. But she caught the aggravated look on her sister's face. "Forget it."  
  
A right turn, and they began marching down the next aisle. God bless Giles's guilty conscience- he'd insisted on giving her steady checks till she found a better job, on the condition that she attended at least one class at the community college per week.  
  
"Went by the crypt," Dawn began casually. Buffy knew that she was trying to goad her into another argument. Well, she'd take the higher road.  
  
"Is that so?" she studied the label of generic baked beans can. Nobody in the house ate baked beans.  
  
"Yep." Dawn fiddled around with the corn.  
  
"How did that go?" she pushed the cart further down the aisle.  
  
"He wasn't there."  
  
"Oh? Did he leave?" She didn't care. No, not at all. She nervously fingered a random bag of pistachios as she awaited for Dawn's answer.  
  
"No. He's still in town." She spotted a box of instant hot chocolate mix and dropped it into the cart. Buffy frowned at Dawn's choice.  
  
"That's not in the budget," Buffy took out the box and put it back on the shelves.  
  
"Clem was there though. He's taken over the crypt. Did some redecorating. It looks nice. Lots of yellow." Dawn picked up a bag of marshmallows and placed those into the cart.  
  
"Good for him." Buffy took out the marshmallows too.  
  
"Told me some interesting things." This time, she chose a can of Pringles. Buffy arched an eyebrow at the new item. "He likes those too."  
  
"In that case…" of course, the Pringles went back on the shelves too.  
  
"I don't suppose you're interested in what he had to say?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Didn't think so."  
  
Walking ahead, Dawn proceeded towards the checkout line, a cryptic smile spreading over her face.  
  
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Someone was pounding at the door.  
  
Spike drew his covers up over his head and hoped that the uninvited visitor would finally get the hint and leave. They didn't.  
  
Thump. Thump. Thump. Deep, dull knockings that echoed through the empty hallway.  
  
Spike sleepily poked his head out and glanced at the clock- half past noon. It was midnight for him.  
  
Thump. Thump. Thump. Slow, regulated and precise.  
  
"Sod off!"  
  
Thump. Thump. Thump.  
  
Doing all he could to keep his rage and demon in check, Spike threw off the covers and hopped out of bed. He stalked to the door and violently ripped open the door-  
  
"What the bloody hell-" he trailed off as he recognized his visitor.   
  
His brows furrowed as he gaped at the visitor with confusion and surprise. It was the last person he'd been expecting.  
  
"Angel?"  
  
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NOTE: I know there's some jumping of time between some of the sections of this chapter. Let me know if it's too confusing. 


End file.
